hung between a caress and a slap

teaching or taut

a large contingent wanting the “steps”, the fix it formula

a sad trajectory of bullying and bullshit

dance is not about these things

reduced to a fine gravel, a white-grey rubble

poured clumsily out onto muddy red earth, along a fence-line of a paddock farmed by father and son

while teenage strangers

shot cans off a log and ride trail bikes around us

a testosterone din

rising up like crows

taking on all the bad feelings, omens, regrets, hurts, violence

and flapping with it around our heads

as we stumble through

this ritual to release the demons.

pour out the disappointments, frustrations, hurts,

perhaps unintended (but felt)

then press delete

holding a moment between our fingers

waiting for the kettle to boil

getting dressed when half-asleep

going down a goat trail

running our hands over the deliciously knobbly surfaces

with the taste of forgotten passengers

soft moisture on our faces

being torn away

coming to a place outside time, beyond geography

counting our bones

hearing the light

ghost fingers, invisible touch

lying like a broken puzzle

a tilt is an affirmation

a lift is an invitation

the syntax of gesture is dense

I have coloured in a path

between my heart and my third eye

and it expresses itself up my arm in henna

India is taking me apart and moving through me

I am inhaling the cremated

injesting trails of kin and caste

coated in a dust that’s carrying:
this crumbing temple,
that tilled earth,
hair of camel, defecation of cow, saree sweat, spit, urine, incense, sugar, spice…

it’s all a mixing vapour, moving osmotically through me—

the holy and the horrific

the putrid and the magnificent.

the city of Shivas up my spine
om-chanting me into submission,
beaten with bindis, roped by rakhis,
the floral garland a noose around my lonely neck
(to be thrown in the ganga or fed to a cow)

all the hippy foreigners have the sideways head nod and the namaste
a hash pipe in their pocket and the lonely planet in their backpack
my camera is my shield, bouncing back their stares
at this ghostly apparition—the single white woman

she is sitting on a bonfire
and the wives and mothers dance around its base
their hands joined in feminine rite of passage
the flames of traditional expectation lick around her
her words come out scorched, melting her resolve

she is in headstand on the top of the mountain
built on deep layers of watching, listening, teaching, learning, crafting, distilling
it is always a precarious balance
an ongoing aspiration, an individual pursuit
the wind whistles commiserations around her
and in the distance a mob of women carry their families uphill

the shaman called her up

she’s eating the forest

and regurgitating the people

Yoko Ono and mountain man’s love child

a nest, a womb, an island

maddening lost moments, regrets, grieving

back to business

sweeping a dirt floor

finding her true path

time for coffee